Tag: Blues

Lockdown loops…

by danmusilmusic, posted in Uncategorized

Well pandemic lockdowns sure make jamming with other musicians hard…
And lockdown life has at times felt like one big loop on repeat…
I had long resisted I’ve resisted playing music with #looppedals, fearing tackiness + endless solo noodling, but a mate lent me a mini basic looper during a lockdown, and I couldn’t resist. Both fears have been affirmed. But i hadn’t counted on them providing so much ‘fun’, and scope for random improv soundscapes.
So here’s a little snapshot of some of the silliness that popped in the subsequent weeks, during lockdown.
The first time plugging my weissenborn into the looper, I found this groove…

Then it was AFL grand final time, and I was nervous, so I tried using it as an ad-hoc, very daggy, improv mutli-track device… #footysongs

Then before bed one night, this jumped out…

And things got extra hectic when smashing up a fuzz-blues-stomp version of The Ashplant reel…

Irish Slide Guitar??

by danmusilmusic, posted in Music, News

I’ve long had a deep, hard-to-describe love of traditional Celtic music, and love to romanticise my Irish roots. (‘Musil’ is a Czech name from my Dad’s side of the family, on my Mother’s side is a big Irish mob – hence the sunburn & *in certain light* ginger-tinged beard.)
Despite this love, I’ve only started actually learning a few jigs and reels over the past couple of years.

“Why not learn a bunch of Celtic tunes on the dobro??” I thought. So I did.
And I’m still enjoying noodling out more and more of them, and finding out how lap-slide can (and sometimes can’t) slide right into playing tunes and rhythm in the Celtic sessions I try to frequent close to home.

So here is a set of my current favourites, arranged slightly differently, played roughly…  Given I’m playing slide, I thought I’d blues-up and minor-key a slow version of the first tune, ‘Behind the Haystack‘, which is followed by a Gloaming-inspired version of ‘Rolling Wave‘ and closed with a (very rough) arrangement of the ‘West Clare Jig‘.

I hope you enjoy them! (and feel free to let you know what you think).
Might see you at a session sometime soon….

I’ll post some more at some point soon – like the facebook page to stay in the loop, or get in touch to join the email list.

UPDATE 2021: Here’s another Celtic-Blues mashup – a fuzz stomp frolick of The Ashplant Reel on dobro, with a loop pedal. It feels a little blasphemous for the trad listener, but it was fun…